San Jose State promises admission for qualified East Side graduates

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A student passes the Student Union building on the San Jose State University campus Monday afternoon, Feb. 29, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. University officials announced the building will be renamed in honor of Ramiro and Lupe Compean after the family made a $15 million donation. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

SAN JOSE — Hoping to pave the way to college for thousands more local students, San Jose State is inking a pact that will guarantee admission to qualified graduates of the city’s largest high school district.

The Spartan East Side Promise, to be formally signed Friday at a ceremony at Overfelt High, will make San Jose State a more certain destination for students in the East Side Union High School District.

“I am ecstatic about this,” East Side Superintendent Chris Funk said. He noted that as California produces more high school graduates who have passed the prerequisites for the state’s public universities, the state has failed to provide resources for its universities to expand enrollment. That has made admission to popular campuses like San Jose State increasingly tough.

“On the East Side, some students don’t have the resources to go out of state for college,” said Overfelt senior Nathalia Mayorga.

Financially and practically, more students are likely to attend a local university, Funk said. Especially for first-generation college students, leaving home and families is not always an option.

Under the pact, San Jose State will guarantee admission to all East Side graduates who have completed 15 required preparatory classes with a grade of C-minus or better while meeting a certain minimum calculated from their grades and the SAT or ACT entrance exam scores.

What has been tricky in recent years is that those criteria have varied year by year because the university has been so overwhelmed with qualified applicants. So it has set a minimum, known the eligibility index, not only for admission to the university but also for acceptance into each academic department. The eligibility indexes are derived from a student’s grade-point average and entrance exam scores. They fluctuate annually with variations in demand and budget.

A key part of the Spartan Promise is that East Side students will be able to lock in the lowest eligibility index from their four years of high school, just like homebuyers lock in interest rates. However, although the university will promise them a space, it won’t necessarily reserve a particular major — especially if the student’s grades and test scores fall below a particular department’s minimums.

“It’s a great idea for the requirements not to change,” said Ibrahim Mubeen, an Overfelt senior who has accepted San Jose State’s offer of admission and plans to study software engineering. “That would only help students.”

San Jose State will boost outreach to East Side schools, including the seven feeder elementary districts, and provide students more information on admissions and financial aid.

The initiative is patterned after the Long Beach College Promise — similar but with a break on tuition at the local community college included, as well. The Long Beach program has increased enrollment of local students and improved college retention. Several years ago, Manny Barbara of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation researched that program. “I thought if they can do it there, why can’t we do it here?” he said.

The university did not provide an estimate for the number of additional East Side Union graduates it expects to accommodate in 2017, when the initiative kicks in. For fall 2016, San Jose State offered admission to 1,191 East Side seniors. In 2015, more than 5,000 students graduated from East Side schools.

In coming years, the university will seek and adjust funding to accommodate those who meet the Spartan Promise requirements, Lopes Harris said.

“There’s something great about being able to attend public schools in San Jose and going to college at San Jose State,” said Kathy Gomez, superintendent of Evergreen School District.

Mayorga is weighing offers from San Diego State and San Jose State. Her family’s wishes weigh on her.

Sharon Noguchi covers preschool through high school for the Bay Area News Group. She's written about teen stress, high-school cheating, Common Core and teacher tenure. She also runs workshops aimed at developing high school journalists.